


things just cannot grow beneath the winter snow

by peggyolson



Series: this is the fate you’ve carved on me [2]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Christmas, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-20
Updated: 2013-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-05 07:27:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1091201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peggyolson/pseuds/peggyolson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>he’s had worse christmases.</p>
            </blockquote>





	things just cannot grow beneath the winter snow

**Author's Note:**

> this is something of a sequel to [just the same but brand new](http://archiveofourown.org/works/717253)/a continuation of the mickey and ian move to new york and do domestic shit verse, but you'll still understand this if you didn't read the first one, never fear
> 
> merry christmas, y'all!

Mickey’s always been an upsettingly light sleeper.

Moving to New York hasn’t helped him build a tolerance or anything – it’s actually somehow gotten worse. Ian suggested sleeping pills a while ago, but Mickey won’t let Ambien anywhere fucking _near_ him after what happened last time. They don’t talk about it, but Mickey knows the pictures of him drooling on Ian’s leg haven’t been deleted and he knows at least two Gallagher siblings have copies.

It doesn’t take a lot to wake him up, and Ian knows that, which is why Mickey can’t think of a possible explanation for him sitting up in bed in the middle of the night like he has a death wish.

“ _Stop_ ,” Mickey groans into the pillow.

“Stop what?”

“ _That_.”

“Mick, it’s snowing.”

He’s quiet, waiting for the end of Ian's sentence before realizing that _was_ the end of it. He sighs. “Jesus Christ.”

“It’s the first snow of the year, come on.” Mickey stays silent, which doesn’t seem to matter. “I’m going outside.”

“No, you ain’t,” Mickey says and, you know, Ian’s constantly doing things he doesn’t understand – willingly speaking to Mandy, smiling – but he really wasn’t expecting him to actually get out of bed. The sudden rush of cold air on his side has him groaning pitifully as he pulls the discarded blankets up to his nose, squinting at Ian as he puts his shoes on. He still doesn’t really believe this is actually happening until Ian, bundled up under Mickey’s scarf, turns and looks at him expectantly. His hair looks dumb as hell, all stuck up on one side, and he has a red mark on his cheek from where he’d fallen asleep on his hand. 

Mickey shakes his head and rolls over. “Have fun freezing your balls off.”

Gallagher leaves anyway because of course he does, and Mickey lies there for a while, unable to get back to sleep without Ian’s furnace-like body heat next to him. He finally, inevitably, gets out of bed, muttering to himself as he shoves layers on his body. Even he can’t justify this shit anymore.

Ian’s standing on the sidewalk in front of their building, hands deep in his pockets, the bottoms of his pajama pants soaking through, head tilted up. He doesn’t look surprised to see Mickey trudging up next to him, just throws a smile his way and breathes in deeply as if snow has a smell. Mickey can only imagine the horrifying traditions the Gallaghers almost definitely have, if the look on Ian's face is anything to go off of. He assumes it involves, like, snowballs and hot chocolate and hugging and other things that would make Mickey anxious.

A piece of snow hits him in the eye. He grimaces around his forced wink and kicks at Ian’s foot. “We done here? Fuckin’ freezing.”

“One second.”

“My hands are gonna fall off, man.”

“You can go inside,” Ian reminds him and when Mickey says nothing, he tears his gaze away from the snow to glance at him, one corner of his mouth turning up. The kid can read him like a book; he wonders if that’ll ever stop making him crazy. “C’mere, asshole,” he says, tucking his arm over Mickey’s shoulders and pulling him into his chest. As always, he’s inexplicably radiating warmth, so if Mickey presses his face into his neck, well, it’s three in the morning. Shit happens.

 

*

 

“More to the left.”

“Shut up.”

“Seriously, left.”

“Fuck does it look like I’m doing?”

“Honestly, not a lot.”

“You don’t like my way, do it yourself.”

“Hell no,” Ian says, tipping his beer bottle in Mickey’s direction. “I’m enjoying this way too much.” He grins from where his ass is firmly planted on the couch.

Since Mickey’s life turned into a joke the minute he shacked up with Ian Gallagher, the fact that he’s standing on a chair trying to make sure their Christmas tree is standing up straight really shouldn’t surprise him. And yet.

It’s just that Ian had been walking around with wounded dog eyes since they had to be Real Adults and agree that they definitely didn't have the money to get back to Chicago for Christmas as they’d planned. It was either pay for a flight or starve for a month and they were both pretty attached to not doing that, so. Choices were made.

Look, Mickey had accepted it pretty easily – to the surprise of no one, the Milkoviches had never been big on holidays. He can’t remember the last time they had presents or, like, tinsel, or any of that shit, if ever. The closest thing to a celebration he can think of is that time he and Iggy got high, stole a car, and did donuts in the high school’s parking lot, but Ian tells him that doesn’t count.

The thing is, though, the Gallaghers are sort of like the white trash version of one of those blissfully lame families from all the Christmas movies. He’d heard enough stories for a lifetime about Fiona wrapping hand-me-downs in colorful paper to make them look like real presents, about Ian and Lip stealing the tree, about Kev coming over dressed as Santa. Christmas was always somehow pulled together into something resembling joy and this was the first time in Ian’s life that he was spending it away from them.

He was walking all around the apartment like the poorest little match boy the night he called Fiona to tell her. It made Mickey want to burn things down. “You okay?” He’d asked, feeling infuriatingly helpless.

And Ian just gave him a small smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, shrugging one shoulder. “Yeah. Just the way it’s gotta be.”

Mickey, for lack of anything better to say, offered to go rob a bank. Ian didn’t even pretend to laugh.

And he's only human, okay? There was only so much moping he could deal with before he broke. For fuck’s sake, he'd overheard Ian singing “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” in the shower the other morning - and he can’t sing to save his life. The whole thing was so fucking pathetic, Mickey had to do _something_.

It went like this: a guy Mickey works with happens to have a cousin who sells Christmas trees in the East Village. The dude hooked him up with one for an ounce of weed and half the usual price, and his paycheck that week went towards a box of lights and shitty plastic ornaments from the CVS two blocks over, which he was predictably fucking useless at picking out. He had to enlist the help of the girl behind the counter, who laughed at him more than Mickey would have liked. 

“Yo, I need you,” he called, half inside and holding one end of the tree off the ground. Ian poked his head out of the kitchen curiously but made no move to help him, because Mickey propping the front door open with his ass was apparently of no concern to him.

“For what?”

“Just come here,” Mickey said impatiently. When Ian did, he shoved the shopping bags into his hands and hauled the tree into the living room without preamble.

The stunned look on Ian’s face as he glanced up and down from the bags to the tree would’ve been funny if Mickey’s stomach wasn’t in knots. He raked a hand through his hair and bit down hard on his lower lip. 

“What is this?” Ian asked, all wide-eyed shock.

Mickey huffed, rolling his eyes and gesturing aggressively to the tree. “Fuckin’ – it’s _Christmas_ , douchebag.”

A smile flickered across Ian’s face. “You got ornaments.” 

“Yeah,” Mickey muttered, tugging at his sleeves self-consciously. Ian was incapable of not wearing his every emotion on his face and earnestness gave Mickey chest pains, so he turned around to start messing with the tree. “If you want this thing up, you better come help me.”

And Ian did, for all of ten minutes, before he decided that Mickey could handle it on his own, which is more or less how he finds himself in his current situation.

“No, you can’t just throw the lights on,” Ian says. “You have to _string_ them around the tree.”

Mickey’s jaw clicks. “I’m gonna push you out the window.”

“But baby,” Ian implores, frowning innocently. “It’s cold outside.” Mickey pegs an ornament at his head. 

“Fuck Christmas,” he says, shoving Ian’s feet out of the way to make room for himself. 

“Says the guy who just spent an hour decorating a tree,” Ian replies. They sit for a while, not talking but staring ahead at Mickey’s hard work, their shoulders brushing with every trade of the cigarette. It does look kind of nice, as far as trees go.

“Hey,” Ian says eventually, and Mickey looks over. The tree illuminates one side of his face, bright and content. His fingers curl around the back of Mickey’s neck, pressing their foreheads together, and he looks good right here, right now, Mickey thinks. Happy. “Thank you for doing all this. Really. It means a lot to me.”

“It’s nothin’, man,” Mickey lies.

Ian smiles. “Just take the fucking thank you.” Before Mickey can come up with some other half-hearted protest, Ian kisses him, slow and sweet. His hand finds Mickey’s own and squeezes gently.

The rest of the night is spent fighting over the blanket, Mickey silencing Ian every time he tries to sing a Christmas song, and eventually just giving in and letting him put on _Home Alone_. He glances over at the fucking idiot, whose feet are up in Mickey’s lap as he tells him about the year Carl decided he was Kevin McCallister and tried to rig the house with traps.

He’s had worse Christmases.


End file.
